Past literature has documented the liability of foreignness (LOF) that foreign MNEs face when they introduce organizational practices abroad that work well in their home countries, particularly practices that conflict with local cultural norms. However, when foreign MNEs adopt practices that resemble those of their local counterparts, whether and why foreign MNEs still face a LOF is unclear. This study explores why foreign MNEs that implement a compensation practice used by local counterparts – collective bonuses – may not experience the same performance benefits. Our data consists of interviews and longitudinal survey data of the organizational practices of MNEs in France, a country where commitment to egalitarian resource distribution is culturally strong. We find that foreign MNEs, especially those from countries where egalitarian commitment is relatively low, benefit significantly less in terms of productivity when implementing collective bonuses than do their French counterparts. We show how even when foreign MNEs adopt local practices, they can subtly transfer the cultures of their home countries. In other words, they transfer informal, elusive norms (e.g., non-egalitarian attitudes of top management) that can be problematic. Tension persists between the informal requirements to facilitate the practice in the host country and the MNE’s home-country culture, a core part of their tacit knowledge. It is one of the first pieces to show that imitating local practices may not suffice to reduce LOF because cultural conflicts make such imitation ineffective. Our findings shed light on how MNEs’ cultural heritage can shape the effectiveness of their practices abroad.

中文翻译：

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为什么本地适应有时对跨国公司无效：探索集体奖金、平等主义和非正式规范的动态

过去的文献记录了外国跨国公司在将在本国运作良好的组织实践引入国外时面临的外国责任（LOF），特别是与当地文化规范相冲突的实践。然而，当外国跨国公司采取类似于其当地同行的做法时，外国跨国公司是否以及为何仍面临 LOF 尚不清楚。本研究探讨了为什么实施当地同行所使用的薪酬做法（集体奖金）的外国跨国公司可能不会获得相同的绩效收益。我们的数据包括对法国跨国公司组织实践的访谈和纵向调查数据，法国对平等资源分配的承诺在文化上很强。我们发现外国跨国公司，尤其是那些来自平等主义承诺相对较低的国家的人，在实施集体奖金时在生产力方面的收益明显低于法国同行。我们展示了即使外国跨国企业采用当地做法，它们也可以巧妙地转移本国的文化。换句话说，他们转移了可能有问题的非正式的、难以捉摸的规范（例如，高层管理人员的非平等态度）。促进东道国实践的非正式要求与跨国企业的母国文化之间存在紧张关系，这是其隐性知识的核心部分。这是首批表明模仿当地做法可能不足以减少 LOF 的作品之一，因为文化冲突使这种模仿无效。